Teacher evaluation

Schools should ask students to evaluate their teachers. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

At some schools, students are given a questionnaire at the end of each semester and are asked to evaluate their teachers and professors. I believe this is a good practice. For the students, the faculty, and the administration, teacher evaluation is an indispensable part of any educational institution.

It is important for students to have the opportunity to comment on their teachers' performance. Most students want to be sure that the education they are receiving is of the highest possible quality. By critiquing their instructors' teaching skills, they will feel that they have some kind of influence over this matter.

Feedback from students is valuable also for teachers. A teacher needs to know when his or her teaching methods are effective for a particular group of students. For example, teaching a graduate seminar may require a very different approach than lecturing to undergrads. Thus, the students' comments will let the teacher know which teaching strategies work well and which could be improved upon. Or, since many comments are filled with praise and elaborate "thank-yours," they are sometimes simply great morale boosters.

Finally, teacher evaluation forms are useful for the university administration. They can help the administration to control the quality of education at their school by ensuring that teachers are aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They can influence the decision whether or not to grant tenure to a particular professor. Moreover, in the case where a teacher consistently gets negative feedback from students, the administration can use this information to decide on finding a replacement.

In the final analysis, the process of evaluating teachers is beneficial to all parties involved. Indeed, the simple act of conducting the evaluation keeps everyone aware of the fact that good education depends on open lines of communication between teacher and student. Undoubtedly, students will perform better if they know their opinions matter, and teachers will perform better if they know that their students care about how they are being taught.